Anyway, the British smack Marie left, and everyone had forgotten her by the time the yard - which had been kept busy building many other boats of about the same size - launched a smack which had the name Marie carved on the transom. It was a common enough name, and because the French authorities used a different system of measuring and marking tonnage, and numbering, and anyway French officials are much more understanding - Louis winked for the third time - perhaps it was not surprising she had the same number and tonnage carved on her main beam as the Marie that once visited Boulogne from Folkestone. Indeed, by a curious coincidence the Boulogne-built Marie also had a copper tingle on the starboard side just forward of the chainplates, matching the one on the Folkestone Marie (she had sailed into the quay soon after being launched, and her builders had nailed on a piece of copper sheathing). So if both smacks had anchored near each other - not that they ever had, and very few people knew of the twins - it would have been impossible to tell them apart. And of course the French owner was a law-abiding citizen; naturally he had all the necessary papers providing that the Boulogne-built Marie was a regular Boulogne-based fishing-smack - just as the owner of the Folkestone-built Marie had papers proving she was a regular British smack.
The only thing was - and now Louis tapped the side of his nose - the British Marie with French papers and the French Marie with British papers, could cross the Channel in opposite directions at the same time, meeting briefly in mid-Channel to exchange documents and the British skipper, and visit each other's home ports without anyone being the wiser, The only physical difference was that the board on the transom showing the port of registry was changed - each smack carried both names. Regulations about having the abbreviation for the port of registry painted on the bow and sewn on the sail were ignored . . .
Nor did the English Revenue men pay much attention. For years, in peace and war, they had seen the Marie sail late in the evening to go fishing and return at dawn, time enough for the early market, and everyone knew she could never sail to France and back in that time, so she couldn't be carrying contraband. Maybe a cask or two occasionally, bought from a passing smuggler on a dark night - but certainly not bales of silk and lace lashed up in canvas, boxes of tobacco, cigars and tea, casks of brandy and pipes of wine. Obviously, the Revenue men thought, smuggling contraband on that scale could only be done by the bigger vessels which were away for several days; even the greenest young Customs searcher knew that. So no one ever bothered to see how thick was the layer of fish caught by the Marie; no one ever compared the probable amount - judging by the quantity in the fish hold - with the amount boxed and taken to Folkestone market . . .
It was an ingenious system and, Ramage noted, like all good systems it was simple. Only one lot of bribes had to be paid - to the French officials in Boulogne. Since the French authorities did nothing to hinder smuggling to England, the only risk was from greediness rather than informers. In fact, from what Admiral Nelson had said, it was highly unlikely that bribes needed to be paid: with French currency worthless outside the country, Bonaparte needed foreign currency to pay for goods he bought abroad, and the guineas and shillings paid by the English smugglers for the contraband would fetch a good rate of exchange . . .
'Do you carry contraband only one way - to England?' he asked Louis.
The Frenchman shook his head vigorously. 'No, usually we bring back woollen things (very short of clothes here, unless you wear only silk and lace), rum - the only supply from Guadeloupe is very small these days - and often whisky.'
When Ramage raised his eyebrows in surprise Louis laughed. 'No, the French are not suddenly changing their taste - except to drink more gin from Holland. The British détenus - there are hundreds held at Verdun and such places - like whisky and still have the money to pay for it.'
Ramage wondered if Bonaparte knew that one section of his British prisoners - the hundreds of civilians trapped in France when the war began and since treated as prisoners of war - had a regular supply of their favourite drink smuggled in through his main invasion port . . .
Well, it was all very interesting, but smuggling was only indirectly involved with the job in hand. The question was how much could he trust Louis? The man must know Boulogne very well. If he did not know something, he would know where to find out. Ramage had to balance the need for secrecy with the fact that he had to start gleaning information from somewhere. He thought for a moment of Dyson, who already knew a certain amount and was probably shrewd enough to guess most of the rest of Ramage's task. Anything Dyson knew or guessed must be regarded as information shared with Louis - although Ramage was doubtful if Louis shared much with Dyson.
Thinking that he might one day have to justify his decision to enlist Louis's help to the Admiralty, he realized that it would be almost impossible to put his reasons into words. Louis was rough, though clearly not uneducated, and officially the subject of an enemy nation. But he was a smuggler - and probably had been one for most of his life, and perhaps his father before him. Smuggling was an international calling or, rather, smugglers acknowledged no flag; their allegiance was to money.
He found he could almost argue the smuggler's case. In a Britain where almost everything was in short supply, what shopkeeper could refuse a lady a few yards of French lace for her new ball dress, a bolt of silk, pearls, mother-of-pearl? What shopkeeper could refuse to sell the lady's husband a few pounds of choice tobacco or cigars? What wine merchant could refuse an old and valued customer a pipe of wine, a cask of brandy, a puncheon of port, a couple of dozen of fine sherry? The smuggler knew the answer only too welclass="underline" shopkeepers, vintners, tobacconists and the like usually had to refuse because they could not get the items, but the smuggler could, and who was to blame him for supplying them at a price which rewarded his risk but was still far below the price when duty was added?
Because of the war, these items could not be imported legally, since they came from the enemy's country. Law-abiding businessmen could not import them even if they paid all the duties in hard cash and with a smile on their faces: that would be trading with the enemy and akin to treason.
So, the smuggler would argue, who can blame me if I risk my life and liberty to go to France and get these items, and risk my life and liberty once again on my return to England? If I declared them so that I paid the regular duty, I'd be put in jail, so I land them on a dark night (thus adding more risk to the whole venture) and satisfy the ladies and gentlemen: the ladies can dress in beautiful clothes and cheer up the gentlemen; the gentlemen can puff a pipe or a cigar after a good dinner which was helped down with a fine wine topped off with a good port. The gentlemen were - however briefly - cheerful enough not to curse the government or bully their wives; the wives were so happy in their new finery they did not nag their husbands.
Ramage chuckled to himself: there was an equally good case for arguing that smugglers should be honoured like other worthy citizens: he could just imagine the announcement that so-and-so had been created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath 'for distinguished services to smuggling'. One did not have to be very sophisticated to consider it better earned than the knighthoods, baronies and the like that were handed round like buns and ale at a cockfight in return for money paid to a political party. Better if a man earned a knighthood after risking his life than bought it in the same furtive way he would a puncheon of brandy ...